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Meanwhile, parent Sega Enterprises said it will cut operating costs by $283 million in the fiscal year that began April 1. Analyst Michael Goodman of The Yankee Group, Boston, said those cuts aren't likely to affect Sega's U.S. operations, its main focus.But Sega's decline is a matter of tiffany cufflinks uk. "If you want to compare Sega to [Sony] PlayStation, it's a bit unfair," said Goodman. "But they've carved out a nice niche for themselves."Sega has shipped 2 million Dreamcasts in the U.S.,vs.17 million PlayStations and 12 million N64s, Goodman said.What's in a name? For listed companies there may be plenty, especially if the new name attracts more investors. That certainly seems to be the logic behind the rash of companies on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong that have switched signboards recently to display vaguely hi-tech-sounding monikers.

In the first three-and-a-half months of this year, 36 companies on tiffany somerset Hong Kong exchange changed, or made plans to change, their names in ways that give them a clear New Economy ring, according to the REVIEW'S tally of stock-exchange notices. That compares with just 20 for all of 1999, when the cyber-name game first caught fire.Few of the companies have made any significant investments in hi-tech ventures yet, although all have indicated such intentions. Analysts say the name changes are most likely aimed at inflating company's stock prices ahead of any planned hi-tech moves.

"It's pretty common whenever there's a bubble. They are just trying to cash in on the latest stockmarket rage," says Dan Fineman, regional strategist for brokerage Jardine Fleming Securities in Hong Kong.To be fair, some of the companies with new names have tiffanys significant new investments in genuinely hi-tech ventures. Noble Link Holdings; for example, is now known as eCyberChina.net and is investing $6 million in a broadband data-transmission project in Nanhai, southern China. Former building-materials concern Companion Marble has staked $10 million on an Internet-services business, renaming itself Skynet International.

Still others are in businesses that are being heavily affected by the New Economy and are making moves to keep up. Television maker Great Wall Electronics has changed its name to Great Wall Cybertech as it moves to incorporate the Internet and broadband applications into its products. South China Brokerage is now South China Online as its retail-broking business moves onto the Internet.But in other cases the name changes are puzzling. Several follow significant new investments in deals that seem only marginally hi-tech. Asia Aluminum Holdings is entering the bus-heater business in China as Global Applied Technologies. tiffany bangles uk Kee Holdings plans to produce television programmes as Sun Television Cybernetworks.And an even bigger group of the renamed companies had not made any significant new deals, hi-tech or otherwise, as of mid-April (see.chart).Critics of the city's new name game say the Securities and Futures Commission could be doing more to send out the message to investors that a name change does not necessarily mean a business change. "Many companies are saying they are doing hi-tech without actually doing it," says James To, a Democratic Party legislator who sits on the SFC's investor-education committee. "By that logic, we should change our name to the Democratic Dynamic Hi-Tech Party."But the SFC says investors can decide for themselves whether a name change justifies a higher share price."There's a limit to how much the SFC can do," says Fan Yiu-kwan, dean of business at Hong Kong Baptist tiffany bracelets uk and another member of the SFC's investor-education committee. "Investors will only learn when they get hurt in the pocketbook."

That lesson may be sinking in. Since extreme volatility began hitting the Hong Kong market early this year, many firms that gained value on name changes have seen their shares crash. By April 18, Dong Jian Tech.com, which in January changed its name from Dong Jian Group, was down twothirds from its mid-February high of HK$1.56 (20 U.S. cents). Iquorum Cybernet, formerly RJP Electronics, shed three-quarters of its high of 32 HK cents over the same period.